New member

Status
Not open for further replies.
Lourdes

Lourdes

Member Since 2019
Hi everyone, my name is Lourdes and my kitty is Sakhi.
Sakhi is asthmatic and has been a member of the yahoo feline asthma group for 10 years. He takes 2 puffs a day of flovent and his asthma is controlled.
Sakhi also has heart problems and takes medication for that, also doing well and his meds were recently lowered.
He has now been diagnosed with diabetes, he is being re-tested next Tuesday and two of my friends who have diabetic cats suggested that I join this group. Sakhi eats mainly wet food with a small amount of dry food at night which even though is supposed to be mainly protein based I will eliminate based on what I have read so far.
Thank you for letting me join and I will be posting for advise as needed, any information, initial help would be appreciated.
Love
Lourdes and Sakhi
 
Hi Lourdes and Sakhi and welcome to the forum. We are very glad you found us.
Do you know what type of insulin you will be using?. Lantus, levemir or Prozinc are longer acting insulins and are the best ones for cats.
Here is a link which has a lot of information for new members. There are links for you to look up. If you could set up your signature and spreadsheet that would be great.
Ask lots of questions!
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-how-you-can-help-us-help-you.216696/
 
Hi Brown, thank you for welcoming us, I just went to Publix and bought the fancy feast classic pate to get him started and mixing with his old food. Funny that I spent so much money buying weruva , Royal canin, etc and fancy feast ends up being good for him. I also saw that royal canin has a diabetic food so I am going to ask his vet, and any input from you is welcome, before I order it. I will read the link and trust me I will have many questions and will try to figure out signature and spreadsheet I am not the most techy person and don’t have info yet since we are going to the vet on Tuesday for re-testing, thank you again and happy new year
 
Some of the Weruva are good foods too.Not the pouches. Save those for your hypo kit.

Yes, Royal Canin has a diabetic food but the dry is very high in carbs (29 -32% based on guaranteed analysis figures). The wet RC glycobalance is lower in carbs, around 14% but it's an expensive food, and AAHA Diabetes Guidelines recommend 12% carb content or less. Many members here have found that even lower carbs (<10%) means better glucose control for their cats and even sometimes remission. Haven't found any vet journal studies that show that lower carb % is more appropriate, but certainly the lower carbs worked for my cat and many others.

Have you seen the link to Dr. Lisa Piersons' food chart that lists a lot of different foods that available. Look for foods that are <10% carbs. Only wet foods are listed as dry food is much higher in carbs, is water depleted and can cause lots of other health issues for cats.

Here is the link to the food chart http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf
 
Last edited:
He eats the weruva in the bags which has sauce and from what I have read the sauce is not good. He doesn’t eat dry food only wet, fortunately! I have the link to Dr Piersons food chart and will be printing it and going through the foods, now that I know what to look for I will order him food at 12% carb or less. Would it be good if I just buy him organic chicken breast and cut it up for him? Thank you so much for your support and feed back I wish you and your family a wonderful new year ♥️♥️♥️
 
Cats need vitamins and minerals that plain chicken breast would not provide. Some people do make their own raw food. Tons of info in this article by vet Dr. Lisa Pierson on raw food feeding. Just click on the blue highlighted text to take you to that article.

The chicken breast cut up (cook first to kill any bacteria) would make a great treat at test time and when giving the insulin. Bribes, think of the chicken breast as bribes to your cat.

You're very lucky your cat already eats wet food. Took me many weeks to get my diabetic cat to eat wet food.

The Weruva Cats in the Kitchen (CITK) pouches are higher in carbs. Canned versions of CITK are good though.
 
Last edited:
Feeding a raw diet is fine. However, you can't just give Sakhi protein -- it's not nutritionally complete. There are a numbers of supplements that are necessary to insure your kitty is getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals, etc. in his diet. If you want to go the raw route, and many here do, the pre-mix I would recommend is called EZComplete by a company called FoodFurLife. Dr. Lisa does have a recipe for making your own raw food. I was too lazy to source all of the supplements and another member here (@Marje and Gracie) did extensive research on the various pre-mixes and recommended EZComplete.
 
Thanks so much for the response. I buy the Whole Life chicken treats, they are expensive but he loves them and it is just chicken, I am not great in the kitchen so I prefer to keep that for treats, I also went through all the foods on the list from Dr Lisa and some of the ones that he eats are acceptable and there is a wide variety of choice from different brands so I feel comfortable that we will be able to adjust his diet. Ironic that so many of the very expensive Foods that I feed him are high in carbs!
 
Hi I was waiting to go to vet on Tuesday to have more information but I will start looking at it now ♥️
 
When looking for suitable canned food look for food that is 10% carbs or under not 12%. 12% carbs is medium carbs not low carb. It is low carb you need to look for. A lot of us feed food with carbs around 4-7% carbs.
 
Thank you already made a list and will be buying tomorrow. I bought the fancy feast today and will start feeding him that today ♥️
 
Well, I see a couple of things in your signature, but only your name and then your cats name. Did you put more info in the signature and then not save the changes? Mentioning the asthma, heart disease, any meds, age of cat, which one is the cat, where you live (only general like US, Canada) is nice to see.

You can add more to the signature later, once you see the vet again.

Hi Sakhi! Is that one of your favorite toys in your profile picture? Do you have any other feline roommates or a doggie roomie?
 
Hi I just went back added a little more detail and saved it again, I hope that you can see it now. It was saved before so weird that you couldn’t see it, Sakhi is very spoiled and has many toys, even though he is 10 he still pays with all of his toys and his springs which he loves. He doesn’t have any siblings, because of his asthma I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to stress him with another fur baby then came his heart condition and his cardiologist did not recommend it, so, he is a very spoiled only child! I had completed where we live (miami florida) already so hopefully everything will show now. Sakhi and I think that Wink is adorable and love the name too ♥️
 
Whatever you're doing to create a signature isn't working. All your signature currently includes is your name and your cat's name.

Are you sure you weren't completing the information for your profile? There are two parts to the link that Deb provided. You want to start by opening your ID the same way you did for your Profile. Select Signature (2nd item in the column on the left.) Your signature should include the following:

On the left, under Settings, Click on Signature.
This is where you will put information that helps us give you feedback.
There is a limit of two lines which may include two links; you may separate pieces with commas, dashes, | etc.
This is where you paste the link for your spreadsheet, once it is set up.
Add any other text, such as
  • Caregiver & kitty's name (optional)
  • DX: date
  • Name of insulin
  • Name of your meter
  • Diet: "LC wet" or "dry food" or "combo"
  • Dosing: TR or SLGS or Custom (if applicable)
  • DKA or other recent health issue (if applicable)
  • Acro, IAA, or Cushings (if applicable)
  • Spreadsheet link on the last line by itself (for quick access)
Click to expand...
 
Hi Sienne and Gabby, thank you for the information, I don’t have any of that information except for our names because Sakhi is going back to the vet on Tuesday to discuss treatment and get re-tested. I will go back and see if there is any other information that I can input now otherwise I will do it on Tuesday after we get back from our appointment. In the meantime I printed and reviewed Dr Lisa’s nutritional guide and follow the advise that our other 2 members gave to me and identified foods with less than 10% carbs. I fed him fancy feast classic today and he loved it so that was comforting :)
 
Thanks for the update. I suspect that everyone was looking for the information that is typically included in a signature and not just your names. Be patient if people keep asking (and refer them to post #18).

Regardless of the outcome of the vet visit, getting Sakhi on a species appropriate diet is a very good thing! When Gabby was diagnosed, I was going nuts trying to figure out how to feed her one thing and my other cat something else until someone here pointed out that the non-diabetic cat would be fine eating a low carb diet. (Duh!) Since that time, all of my cats have been fed low carb. Dr. Lisa's website builds a very compelling case for feeding an obligate carnivore a species appropriate diet. Should Sakhi be diabetic and your vet tries to twist your arm into buying prescription food, resist the impulse to agree. When that happened with my vet, I asked her what the carb count on the diabetic food was. I pointed out that what I was feeding Gabby was about 4% carb -- substantially less than the prescription stuff. She had no idea that the prescription food was so high in carbs. Fundamentally, most vets get very little training in nutrition (nor do MDs) so being able to point out the carb content usually stops them in their tracks.
 
Thank you so much for your feedback and support. I just added the medications that he is currently on. Once I go to the vet on Tuesday I will update, I hope it all fits!
I have a question, most of the pills he takes are tiny so I was using a very good pill wrapper to get them all into a little ball and just give them to him at once. Unfortunately it has a lot of sugar related components, it’s name is vetoquinol. Any suggestions for a substitute? I thought of cream cheese but the consistency is too soft - this morning I thought that I could put the pills in and put it in the freezer for a couple of minutes to solidify it. What do you think? I am open to any suggestions, I am trying to avoid having to pill him more than once, he is such a good boy and I don’t want him to make him uncomfortable if it can be avoided. Thank you so much for the feed back and warm welcome, happy new year to all the humans and fur babies.
 
1. Wrap it in a piece of cheese if Sakhi likes cheese, or a bit of cooked egg.
2. Form any sort of plain unspiced meat around the pills.
3. Small piece of butter around pills.
4. Greenies Pill pockets grain free (duck and ground pea) so the pea will add a bit of carbs. But it's so small unlikely to make much difference in BG levels.
5. Keep using the pill wrap from Vetoquinol
6. Pill popper (usually only holds one pill at a time so giving multiple meds might get less cooperation from your cat)

You don't want Sakhi to miss her medications or start fighting you when you give them.

It's more important to get all those other medications into Sakhi then to eliminate all sources of carbs, so you use what works. Managing multiple health issues gets complicated.

p.s. I recognize all those heart and thyroid medications. I used to put each pill far back in Wink's mouth, followed by a tiny squirt of water. My vet only had the chewable tabs of Vetmeden and those pills are HUGE to get a cat to swallow. Split them in half and even still a struggle for my cat to swallow. Chew them? Forget it!
 
Deb and Wink you do not know how much I appreciate your advise! If you think that it would be okay to keep using the vetoquinol then I will do that I use a minute amount just a tiny piece to hold the very tiny quarter pills together and attach it to the larger pill then he takes it all at once. We have been doing this for a year and it has worked so well that I hate to make any changes. I am so relieved because this morning when I tried the cream cheese he was not happy! Sakhi is such a good boy and he takes his pills very well, his Vetmeden is a pill it is large but I add the tiny ones to it with a tiny piece of the vetoquinol and just out it in the back of his mouth and he swallow it! Once we got our system it has been fine and we have been doing it for a year, the first week, let’s just say that I bled a lot lol then initially I wrapped him like a burrito and after a couple of weeks he let me pill him. Even though he is a rescue and suffered a lot at the hands of horrible humans he is a very sweet and gentle boy ♥️
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top